The Mock LISA Data Challenges: from Challenge 1B to Challenge 3

Babak, S.; Baker, John G.; Benacquista, M.; Cornish, N.; Crowder, Jeff; Larson, Shane L.; Plagnol, E.; Porter, E. K.; Vallisneri, Michele; Vecchio, A.; Arnaud, Keith A.; Barack, Leor; Błaut, Arkadiusz; Cutler, Curt; Fairhurst, S.; Gair, J. R.; Gong, Xiaoli; Harry, G. M.; Khurana, Deepak; Królak, A.; Mandel, Ilya; Prix, R.; Sathyaprakash, B. S.; Savov, P.; Shang, Yu; Trias, M.; Veitch, J.; Wang, Yan; Wen, L.; Whelan, J. T.

doi:10.1088/0264-9381/25/18/184026

Cited by 92 publications

(127 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…For LISA we we use the same noise curve as for the LISA Mock Data Challenge 3 [65] as implemented by Trias and Sintes, and made available by the LISA Parameter Estimation Task Force [66]. The noise curve for advanced Virgo can be found in tabulated form in Ref.…”

Section: Appendix A: Sensitivity Curvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gravitational-wave detectability of equal-mass black-hole binaries with aligned spins

et al. 2009

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Binary black-hole systems with spins aligned or anti-aligned to the orbital angular momentum, and which therefore do not exhibit precession effects, provide the natural ground to start detailed studies of the influence of strong-field spin effects on gravitational wave observations of coalescing binaries. Furthermore, such systems may be the preferred end-state of the inspiral of generic supermassive binary black-hole systems. In view of this, we have computed the inspiral and merger of a large set of binary systems of equal-mass black holes with spins parallel to the orbital angular momentum but otherwise arbitrary. Our attention is particularly focused on the gravitational-wave emission so as to quantify how much spin effects contribute to the signal-to-noise ratio, to the horizon distances, and to the relative event rates for the representative ranges in masses and detectors. As expected, the signal-to-noise ratio increases with the projection of the total black hole spin in the direction of the orbital momentum. We find that equal-spin binaries with maximum spin aligned with the orbital angular momentum are more than "three times as loud" as the corresponding binaries with anti-aligned spins, thus corresponding to event rates up to 30 times larger. We also consider the waveform mismatch between the different spinning configurations and find that, within our numerical accuracy, binaries with opposite spins S1 = −S2 cannot be distinguished whereas binaries with spin S1 = S2 have clearly distinct gravitationalwave emissions. Finally, we derive a simple expression for the energy radiated in gravitational waves and find that the binaries always have efficiencies E rad /M 3.6%, which can become as large as E rad /M ≃ 10% for maximally spinning binaries with spins aligned with the orbital angular momentum. These binaries are therefore among the most efficient sources of energy in the Universe.

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Section: Appendix A: Sensitivity Curvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gravitational-wave detectability of equal-mass black-hole binaries with aligned spins

et al. 2009

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“…[26] and in the Mock LISA Data Challenges [27,28,29,30,31] by setting β = π/2 − θ, λ = φ, and ψ = −ψ.…”

Section: Gw Source Conventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-sky-averaged sensitivity curves for space-based gravitational-wave observatories

Vallisneri¹,

Galley²

2012

Class. Quantum Grav.

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Abstract. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is used in gravitational-wave observations as the basic figure of merit for detection confidence and, together with the Fisher matrix, for the amount of physical information that can be extracted from a detected signal. SNRs are usually computed from a sensitivity curve, which describes the gravitational-wave amplitude needed by a monochromatic source of given frequency to achieve a threshold SNR. Although the term "sensitivity" is used loosely to refer to the detector's noise spectral density, the two quantities are not the same: the sensitivity includes also the frequency-and orientationdependent response of the detector to gravitational waves, and takes into account the duration of observation. For interferometric space-based detectors similar to LISA, which are sensitive to long-lived signals and have constantly changing position and orientation, exact SNRs need to be computed on a source-bysource basis. For convenience, most authors prefer to work with sky-averaged sensitivities, accepting inaccurate SNRs for individual sources and giving up control over the statistical distribution of SNRs for source populations. In this paper, we describe a straightforward end-to-end recipe to compute the non-skyaveraged sensitivity of interferometric space-based detectors of any geometry. This recipe includes the effects of spacecraft motion and of seasonal variations in the partially subtracted confusion foreground from Galactic binaries, and it can be used to generate a sampling distribution of sensitivities for a given source population. In effect, we derive error bars for the sky-averaged sensitivity curve, which provide a stringent statistical interpretation for previously unqualified statements about sky-averaged SNRs. As a worked-out example, we consider isotropic and Galactic-disk populations of monochromatic sources, as observed with the "classic LISA" configuration. We confirm that the (standard) inverserms average sensitivity for the isotropic population remains the same whether or not the LISA orbits are included in the computation. However, detector motion tightens the distribution of sensitivities, so for 50% of sources the sensitivity is within 30% of its average. For the Galactic-disk population, the average and the distribution of the sensitivity for a moving detector turn out to be similar to the isotropic case. Non-sky-averaged sensitivity curves for space-based GW observatories 2

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“…The MetropolisHastings MCMC is a reference method for parameter estimation in Bayesian Statistics (see for example Ref [10]) and in space-based Gravitational waves data analysis (for an overview, we refer the reader to Ref [11] and references therein) where it has demonstrated its flexibility and power in the estimation of parameters for a variety of GW sources [12] . We compare here two different algorithms for the construction of the Markov Chain.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving Bayesian analysis for LISA Pathfinder using an efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo method

et al. 2014

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We present a parameter estimation procedure based on a Bayesian framework by applying a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm to the calibration of the dynamical parameters of the LISA Pathfinder satellite. The method is based on the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm and a two-stage annealing treatment in order to ensure an effective exploration of the parameter space at the beginning of the chain. We compare two versions of the algorithm with an application to a LISA Pathfinder data analysis problem. The two algorithms share the same heating strategy but with one moving in coordinate directions using proposals from a multivariate Gaussian distribution, while the other uses the natural logarithm of some parameters and proposes

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The Mock LISA Data Challenges: from Challenge 1B to Challenge 3

Cited by 92 publications

References 41 publications

Gravitational-wave detectability of equal-mass black-hole binaries with aligned spins

Gravitational-wave detectability of equal-mass black-hole binaries with aligned spins

Non-sky-averaged sensitivity curves for space-based gravitational-wave observatories

Improving Bayesian analysis for LISA Pathfinder using an efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo method

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